Chris Miura's wife is getting a little tired of the story of how bread making became her husband's passion — and soon his second career.

It began 10 years ago, when she was pregnant with their first child and suffered from such pernicious nausea that she couldn't keep anything down. Despite the fact that Chris Miura is an ob-gyn, he couldn't find a medication that would help her. She was losing weight and the situation seemed dire.

Then someone told them about an old Jewish morning sickness remedy: fresh-baked bread.

On the theory that perhaps the bread needed to be Jewish, too, Chris Miura, who has always liked to cook, found a recipe for challah, a braided sweet bread. And, praise be to all those Jewish wise women, it stayed down.

This week, Miura and his partner, baking expert Murray Holt, will release the first loaves from their Kalihi-based Mauna Kea Baking Co. The bakery is a wholesale outlet, but several varieties of Mauna Kea bread are now being test-marketed at select Foodland stores (Hawai'i Kai, Beretania, Market City, 'Ewa, Mililani, Kailua and Pupukea). The crusty artisan-style loaves will sell for about $4 each, comparable to popular La Brea breads, which are baked locally from dough shipped from California.

Who knew what seemed like a chore a decade ago would come to enrich Miura's life?

"I baked bread every day for the whole of that pregnancy," he recalled. "I hated it, but it worked."

With the Miuras' second pregnancy, the bread-baking remedy was repeated. Miura decided that if he had to bake bread, he would learn to do it well. His first inspiration was a classic book: "The Village Baker," by Joe Ortiz (10 Speed, 1993). His second was a family friend, a professional baker. Miura would visit the man every Sunday with a loaf of bread and a six-pack of beer and receive blunt critiques. One day, the man said, "Don't come over anymore. You've got it."

Miura was delighted but not convinced. A bit of a science nerd, he felt a need to understand baking quite literally at the molecular level. There followed courses at Kapi'olani Community College and the prestigious San Francisco Baking Institute. He began buying SAF yeast, a French variety favored by artisanal bakers, and 50-pound sacks of fresh-milled flour from Hawaii Flour Mill.

There also followed the realization that beyond the flour-water-yeast-flavorings formulae, the key to good bread is the baking. After burning out the thermostat in their home stove twice, Miura realized he needed an oven that could achieve ultra-high temperatures and stand up to the humid environment that promotes "oven spring" — the yeast's final, frenetic burst of activity which produces explosive rising and a crisp, crackling crust.

That meant building his first wood-burning oven in the backyard of their home, then in 'Aina Haina. It was a "doghouse"-style oven, shaped like an igloo or the Portuguese-style forno. Every few days, he would build a kiawe fire in the oven. As it cooled, he learned to prepare entire menus: pizza at 700 degrees; breads at 450-400 degree; meats, casseroles, pies, cobblers at 350 degrees and even drying pipikaula (Hawaiian-style jerky) at lower temperatures.

"I'm kind of a Type A person," he said. "I kept wanting to get better and better, and I made a lot of friends in the process. I became 'The Village Baker,' that whole concept of the warmth of giving a loaf to someone."

And, he said, cheerfully, "you can eat your mistakes." Even when the sourdough was past its prime and the bread didn't rise and the result was a doorstop, he found the loaves made delicious croutons.

Miura said most recipes for bread-baking are keyed to cooler climates than ours. Our challenge is keeping the dough cool enough. (Dough should rise slowly to fully develop flavor and structure.)

To become an expert baker, as in any other type of cooking, you have to know the ingredients, techniques and underlying science intimately. "Then you can manipulate the environment to make it work — to me, that's the fun of it," said Miura.

Today, the Miuras live on Wilhelmina Rise in a 1930s home with a view, a swimming pool and — yes — a commodious wood-burning oven out back, with a 36-by-32-inch cooking surface that can accommodate 14 loaves at a time. Bread has become Miura's calling card, given as gifts on every occasion. His children have pizza parties, with the guests shaping and topping their own pies, baked in minutes. With his friend master sommelier Chuck Furuya, Miura hosts bread-and-wine tasting night monthly at Vino — a rare and interesting type of pairing for two yeast-based products. His sourdough loaves are legendary, using a years-old starter he made himself by snagging some musty grapes during a Napa Valley wine tour, squeezing them and mixing up a flour-grape juice batter in his hotel room and smuggling the mess back to Hawai'i.

In short, Miura has become "the bread man."

Mauna Kea Bread Co.'s product line will include baguettes; sourdough loaves in roasted garlic, walnut-raisin and kalamata-olive thyme flavors; lavosh; seven-grain bread; pullman-type sweetbread loaves (perfect for slicing for French toast); and some seasonal specialities, such as panettone (rich Italian fruit bread) and pumpkin bread for the holidays.

Some of these are still in development as Miura marries skills honed in his home kitchen with the professional techniques practiced by his partner and their bakers. These are being baked in imported gas-fired deck ovens.

But what about that doctor business? His patients needn't fret: "I still enjoy being a doctor." Only now he knows that sometimes, the best treatment is a nice, hot slice of bread.

Dr. Chris Miura is fired up about his new venture of baking loaves

Reach Wanda A. Adams at wadams@honoluluadvertiser.com.